Danger Prone
by DrummondType2
Summary: A young amateur sleuth, alone in the dark, reflects on her life of constant danger.


Danger Prone

by

Bryan Weber

Well, it's happened again. Here I am, alone, in some dark room. My hands and feet are bound, and I've had a cloth tied over my mouth as a makeshift gag. The others will come for me. The others always come for me.

I don't think they know how scared I am. I try not to show them. I never cry. I can't let them see me cry. But...I should tell you, I really want to. And who wouldn't? I mean, I've pretty much caught on that these aren't ghosts. They're guys in masks who are trying to scare us off. And they've caught me, and they've left me in a dark little corner of this godforsaken place, and I don't know if they're coming back for me, and I don't know that I want them to.

Some of these guys are dangerous criminals. I'm sure that more than one or two of them have tried to kill us, to be perfectly honest. That's pretty scary, all things considered. We're kids. That's what they call us, when we unmask them and hand them over to the authorities. Kids. But they don't hesitate to leave me bound and gagged in the middle of a dark room. And who wouldn't want to cry about that?

I mean, I'm tied up and gagged way more than your average seventeen year old girl, even the few others who do the whole amateur sleuth thing.

And I've never said anything to the others, but I think that more than a few of those guys have been a bit more "hands on" than they need to be when they tie me up. Some of them play it up as an "accident", but some of them don't even bother.

And this one time, at one of the circuses we were investigating, this creep hypnotized me. And when I woke up, I was wearing different clothes. And I can't remember what happened. Did he change me? Make me change myself? Did he watch? Did he do anything else? That's some seriously messed up stuff! I shouldn't have to worry about some ex-con feeling me up! But I want to be near this one guy, and he wants to do good things, so I don't say anything. Because if he knew how scared I was, how terrified, he would either stop doing the things he loved, or he would leave me behind to do them. And that scares me, too. Because I want him to love me, and I'm sure he does. But my family, we don't talk about the things that bother us. That's not what the upper crust do. We just pretend there aren't any problems.

Little miss know-it-all doesn't make it any easier, either. She's always running me down, talking about how I mess things up, or that I'm "Danger Prone". And when we partner off, she never lets me just be alone with him. She always tags alone, and I have to wonder if she's trying to take him from me. Or maybe those rumors I've heard are true, and I'm the one she's interested in. But that probably isn't it. Because if it were, she'd probably say something nice to me every once in awhile instead of sniping at me, just because I managed to open the one door that the guy in the rubber suit is hiding behind.

How long have I been tied up this time? I don't know. I can't check my watch. It's tied behind my back. It's cold in here, and I just want to have someone undo these ropes and take me home.

Sometimes I wonder if the creeps in the rubber mask are too busy chasing my friends to think about me, all trussed up like a turkey back here. Or are they thinking about the things they might do to me, after?

Do some of them just plan to dump me somewhere and wait for passersby to find me? Or maybe they'll do that with my corpse. Some of these guys really don't want witnesses hanging around, after all. Maybe they think they can keep me around as their own little plaything. What's the worst case scenario? That they just murder me and leave my body for someone to find? Or maybe they make me do...things...and let me go? Which would be less terrifying? Of course, there's nothing that says they can't do both. Force themselves on me and then murder me. That's always a possibility.

Four-eyes doesn't have to worry about things like this, does she? They never kidnap her. They never leave her bound and gagged, or tied in burlap sacks. And still they don't even stop to wonder how I am once they untie me. "Oh, hey, you're alive. Let's get back to looking for clues." Never a "Are you hurt? Are you scared? Do you feel alright to keep going? Did they do anything to you?" They never ask that.

To be fair, I don't think Mr. All-You-Can-Eat and his dog would be comfortable asking. If something did happen, I don't think either of them would be alright with it. Well, none of them would be alright with it, not even Miss Know-It-All. But those two? They'd lose it.

Well, let's be honest. I would probably lose it, too. This isn't a normal way to spend a Saturday night. I pretty sure of that.

I twitch at every little sound. Is it one of the others? Should I call out and let them know where I am? Or is it the brute who put me in here in the first place, and I'd just be reminding him that he had a fairly attractive hostage tied up and at his disposal.

So, I'll just sit here and wait. And hope that it's my friends who find me. And maybe, when I get out of here, I'm going to take those self-defense courses that Mother has been not so subtly pointing out to me when we go out shopping together. So maybe, the next time some creep in a latex mask thinks he can hogtie me, I'll give him a piece of my mind. Or a good left hook.

Until then, it's just me, alone in the darkness. Waiting.

Oh, God, the door just opened. Who? The guy in the mask? My friends? The dog? I would even settle for the dog! Just, please let it be someone who's going to untie me!

"Hey, are you alright?" I feel the ropes loosening, and it's HIM. He found me!

"Uh...I'm fine," I lie to him. I don't know why, but I can't tell him anything else.

"You're braver than me. I'd be scared to death that these guys were going to do something drastic if they left me tied up like that. You're amazing, you know that!"

And I smile, knowing why it is that I put up with being scared all the time. Because he's there, and he thinks I'm worth something, and not just a pretty face with a huge bank account. He's there and he wants me there, and so, I'm going to stay.


End file.
